Gentlemen please. Getting OT here. Still, it's revealing that some people think of self protection on the street in terms of a "fight". Bad people don't generally attack you for "a fight". They want to hurt you, or rob you. And usually do so thinking they have an advantage e.g. size, numbers, weapons, surprise. Unless it's maybe car drivers having a go at each other. The ground is a really bad place in a self defense situation.

But, "*if* you get taken down there, and it's one on one, it's good to know how to extract yourself. So, is the BJJ vid I posted any good, please? Or any other recommendations?

I’m not saying by ANY means that BJJ is the end all, beat all style of all times. I do agree that some of what you are saying does make sense and in a situation where you are facing multiple attackers BJJ isn’t near the best style out there. On the same note I have people come to me all the time and say the same thing…what if 4 or 5 guys jump me? What’s the best fighting style? My honest answer is be a really good runner because there is no good fighting style to take on multiple attackers even though there are many that claim to be.

In the situation stated the guy who I choked unconscious had walked toward me and away from his buddies that were still standing by his car. By the time they could have even reacted he was on the ground and unconscious. Someone who KNOWS how to choke someone properly can do so in a matter of seconds with the correct pressure applied. I don’t see why I would not remember?? To be honest all I do is train so a fight is not quite as adrenaline pumping as it might be to someone who’s not…to me a person wanting too start a fight with me is more of a nuscence than anything. I know to keep calm and do what I train to do.

As far as bringing the fight to the ground I’m not going to really force it to the ground. When I was a child I started training in Shorin-Ryu Karate. After receiving my black belt I met a guy that did Muay-thai kickboxing and began training with him. I trained with him for almost 7 years before I met a guy that did BJJ and went and tried it out. When I first went down the guy told me that I could punch, kick, knee, or whatever else I felt I needed to do and I got the same result multiple times…he took me down and submitted me. That’s when I began training in BJJ; although I do still train in muay-thai. Whether it stays standing or goes to the ground I’m prepared to a certain degree, but I feel it’s best to be well rounded and versed in both because if you are great at fighting standing what are you going to do when a grappler takes you down?

So don’t get me wrong, I realize completely there are flaws to every fighting style. Street fighting is not something that I promote by any means and 9 out of 10 times I’m going to try and talk my way out of a fight, but in the rare instance that I can’t talk my way out I want to be completely prepared no matter what happens.

Also I’ve come across those who have said “BJJ wouldn’t work in a real fight, I’d just punch you in the balls or in the throat on the ground”. My cousin was one such person…we are within 10lbs. and I told him to try. I got him down and got in several different positions and said “punch me in the balls…in the throat…gouge my eyes…do anything dirty you can do”. With superior positioning and staying completely tight (like you are supposed to in BJJ) he could not hit me in the throat, eyes, or groin in side control, mount, back control, guard, or knee on belly without dire concequences. Basically he got caught in a submission hold every time he tried to make a move to get a hold of something.

I think BJJ has merit in a fight just as well as MT or any other style. It has it’s place and can be adapted quite well for a fight if you train to prevent yourself from taking damage from your opponent while capitalizing on their mistakes. Then again when you have multiple attackers all bets are off no matter what you train.

Well, for starters, I never take advice from anyone who's wearing Everlast gel handwraps instead of MMA gloves. I realize they look the same, but if you don't know the difference, you're not worth taking advice from.

As far as the technical advice goes. Punching a guy in teh groin while mounted is stupid for two reasons:

The reason why no self respecting BJJ (or MMA) guy would ever stick his arm up is even more simple:

You're not going to push a guy off of you with your arm. This idiot has an opponent who's letting him execute techniques, but in a real fight, with an opponent keeping their weight down, he's not going to go anywhere.

Also, if he's a BJJ whitebelt with three weeks training, he knows how to sink in that armbar. It's basic, and it's function. And it ends with elbow surgery.

The third is (and I get to bust out my philosophy background) this guy has an idiotic understanding of what jiu-jitsu recommends in terms of mount defense. His demonstration is a strawman.

No jiu-jitsu guy looks for an armlock while mounted. This moron has never seen an upa. He doesn't know how to control the posture or anything.

It's clear his training partner has no grappling experience. Both are completely incompetent on the ground.

The armbar attempt is laughable. Anyone who has their calf on your neck and not your throat deserves to get bit in a streetfight. Of course, you're welcome to try and bite, but, if it's me putting that armbar on, all that's going to make me do is snap your arm in half, and you'll be screaming too hard to do much of anything.

This guy is a twit, and anyone taking classes from him deserves to be cheated out of their money.

OMG, I finally got to watch that video. After reading Iron Man's response I had to watch.

That is the most horrible mount I have ever seen. No way in HELL would someone get me off mount, the guy has no idea what he's doing.

Pinching? Just gonna make me hit you harder and break that arm a little further. Biting? At that point I was probably on the fence about whether I should just pop the elbow or break the arm, but probably leaning more toward just popping the elbow...congrats you just made up my mind to send your ass to the hospital, enjoy the cast. Punching in the groin? As Iron Man stated you just left you face open, you just got knocked out. Pinching the chest muscle? Congrats on getting armbarred AGAIN.

The side control demonstation was hillarious as well. The guy had the absolute loosest/weakest side control I've ever had the displeasure of witnessing. Gouge me in the eye? Congrats on getting key locked, hope you enjoy having your shoulder dislocated.

After watching that I have no respect whatsoever for JKD. Pinching, biting, and punching in the balls...this guy fights like my 4 year old.

Complete grappling ignoramus here. Done kickboxing, other MA blah, blah. I want a quick intro to basics of defence against ground attacks, i.e. the basic priorities and strategy - because it looks like a intricate game of 3-d chess to me.

Alright. I've talked a lot about the upa in past threads. I've got a bit on it in the Back to Basics thread (in this section) if you're really curious what I think of the technique.

The short version is, it works. The short-ish version is: it works and it sets up other stuff too.

I don't know who Roy Dean is, I don't know his history. That said, the dude definitely gave a good walk through of the basics of mount escapes. That's basically how I'd teach them to a basics class.

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Originally Posted by xeberus

Yes, but im talking probability and chance its easy to watch your surroundings from your feet. On the ground you are way less likely to see it coming and I can duck a bat or just run away, on the ground I can't do anything.

This is actually a great point. I make this all the time when I talk about street fighting.

If you ever watch the episode of Fight Quest on Krav Maga, the chick from that episode, Avivit Cohen, makes one of the best points ever.

Basically, you fall on the ground and I stop you until you die. Or my friend stomps and soccer kicks you until you die.

If the fight goes to the ground, though, a quick submission is often way more effective than jumping to your feet. I never recommend taking a fight to the ground, especially against multiple guys, but if you get taken down, work a quick choke or joint lock. If you have the basics down, this should cripple an opponent and give you some time to get back up.

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I was actually talking about someone else stomping or head kicking while your on the ground with the other person, you are vulnerable greatly not just to the person your on the ground with but your defenseless to everything else.

Yeah, again, you can always (and this is especially true when fighting off of your back) use your opponent as a shield.

I'm not going to take time and work a sport-jiu-jitsu attack off of my back. That's what I try and explain. I'm not going to play half guard or butterfly guard.

I'm going to stack the guard into his armpits, work an armbar, shred his elbow and get back to my feet.

The most dangerous part is if you don't understand that you have to just destroy the arm. Then you're in serious danger of getting stomped.

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you got lucky because in that same situation 9 of 10 times you wouldn't remember what happened if you could still be capable of remembering. I've hit guys who had friends and they ended up not wanting any of it, but on the ground I very much doubt they would walk away. Especially if you just choked their friend out which is remarkable they didn't all jump in at once, which seems the obvious choice since your occupied and defenseless on the ground and their friend is being choked.

In my experience, this reaction is actually pretty typical.

If you start off fighting one guy and you choke him out pretty quickly, his friends generally assume that you're competent, and not a guy they want to fight, and they leave.

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No doubt bjj can be lethal, but in order to use it lets go through the steps.

OK.

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You have to close the distance on a target which means you get close enough for him to hit you.

Generally, this is true, but, firstly, there's an error of phrasing.

If you're going to do anything you have to get close enough for him to hit you.

The second problem is that most guys will close the distance anyway in a fist fight. If they want to brawl, they'll move in. In this respect, BJJ, wrestling and judo are more effective on the street than in MMA, because the natural human tendency is to close the distance, and so going to the clinch is actually easier on the street than in MMA.

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You have to get a hold of him and take him to the floor all the while making sure he doesn't spin you into something and hurt yourself on the way down.

Again, takedowns are pretty easy, even for the incompetent.

The reality is, if you can get the clinch and want a fight to go to the ground, you can make it go to the ground. The reason why people assume this is hard is because they don't want to go to the ground, they want to be on top.

That's hard. Scoring a takedown is tough, but even in MMA it's clear that a good jiu-jitsu fighter can force a great wrestler to the mat if he doesn't mind working off of his back. Hell, a good jiu-jitsu fighter who can get to the clinch can instantly destroy his opponent's posture.

Vinny vs. Kryzstof on TUF 8 is one of the best examples of this I've ever seen.

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Now your on the ground vulnerable to everyone around you, a small girl could easily KO you with a soccer kick to the head. A kick you would probably never see coming and you have no vision of your surroundings.

Now, I'm going to ignore the exaggeration and point out that, if a fight goes to the ground on the street, it's going to be over quickly.

Groundnpound in the cage and groundnpound on the street are two different things. If you are looking to groundnpound n the street, the fight should last little more than ten seconds. Ideally, that's time enough to make yourself aware of any small girls in the area.

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Now you have to avoid getting your eyes/throat/groin attacked which would be very easy for the guy on the ground since you are right on top of him and easily within reach all the while setting up a submission.

Go back and watch the old vale tudo and early UFC videos.

Groin strikes were legal. Throat strikes were legal.

How come nobody hit Royce Gracie in the groin? Or the throat?

Because controlling the body of someone who doesn't understand jiu-jitsu is a cakewalk on the ground. Chokes and eye gouges make for easy armbars. Groin strikes expose the face for punching and the collar or neck for choking.

Is there risk of potential pain? Sure. But he's going to be unconscious or unable to lift his arm in a second. So who cares?

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And now one guy is incapacitated, and you scramble to your feet so you can defend yourself from any other possible threats. That is a lot of risk even if your fast, way more risk than I would take unless I was absolutely forced to.

Again, I don't recommend actively taking a street fight to the ground, but if you're on the ground, you're going to end up returning to your feet anyway.

Actually, jiu-jitsu fighters are generally better at getting to their feet then most people, given that they spend a lot of time getting up off of the mat. On top of that, though, there are ways to protect your face, head, ribs and spine in returning to your feet, and those are things basic jiu-jitsu fighters (at least where I train) learn early on.

I agree with everything Iron Man said, I was trying to relay the same points, but perhaps I’m not as eloquent of a speaker…

I train under Tim Credeur so we are always very familiar with the strikes. As stated before I’m not going to FORCE a fight to the ground, but if it goes there I want to be prepared. I saw very early on by going to a competent gym that BJJ does work and it is effective if you train to use it for the streets or for a fight. Tim trains what he calls “white trash jiu-jitsu”, it’s not pretty, but it works and it will hurt people. He’s always telling us to constantly be on the attack and be a “shark” on the ground…always be looking to finish the fight.

As far as being put on your back and getting beat on…go watch Tim’s last fight against Nate Quarry. For the better part of the second and third round Nate had Tim on his back, standing over him dropping bombs. Now with Tim’s active guard coupled with the fact that he’s not afraid to fight off his back it made for a pretty mean fight. Just go look at pictures of Nate’s face after the fight…it’s pretty bad. That shows you right there that a really good BJJ guy (even on his back) can inflict some pretty serious damage from the ground.

Now I’m sure you’ll say “yea, but if it was on the streets you could have eye gouged and punched him in the balls”, but you try to stand over someone like Tim who has an extremely active guard and land hits on him…much easier said than done.

I guess the easy and short answer for you Olde is YES BJJ does work on the streets…if you know how to use it properly.

I might have given you the wrong idea about my experience with bjj. My partner was only my partner because we were like the exact same weight/height. The difference was quality of weight, I was quite a bit stronger than he was and I am in no way saying I cannot be submitted etc by someone who practices bjj. But after testing the ropes I felt it completely useless and dangerous in a real fight.

I have a very similar story I shared a long time ago on this forum. Drunk guy tackles me outside a bar and gets me completely off guard, I put a thumb in his eye, fight is over. No ground training, are you really so sure that someone would not easily do the same to you? Not to mention the threat of being kicked/stomped by others when your on the ground you're completely vulnerable.

Why put yourself at risk, if you already have to catch them off guard in order to get it to the ground why not catch them off guard with a punch and end the fight in less than a second without the risk of being stomped/eye gouged/groin assaulted/throat grabbed etc?

Enough with the eye gouge like it's the end all be all, listen to what bas rutten says on the Joe Rogan Experience not only will he pluck you eyes out after you poke his, with his training he will do it better and more efficient, and then he will break any joint on your body he wants including your neck and you won't be able to do anything about it. So what I'm getting at is the people you eye poked and the fight was over obviously were not warriors cause when you run into a real warrior and do that he's not just gonna say "Unkle" he's gonna take that as you basically taking the fight to a whole new level like pulling a knife and he gonna rip your soul from your body